


old friends

by hellynz



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Not really shippy but, low key shippy, mostly just the idea that the doctor and the master Can Not stay away from each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22124341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellynz/pseuds/hellynz
Summary: Graham gets too close of a look at an old friend of the Doctor's.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 178





	old friends

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote (and deleted rip dont delete your fics friends) this a couple of months ago and since it will soon be canonically impossible I wanted to post it.

Graham wasn’t a fan of the situation, or of the woman sat before him.

Sonic mines, sure. Murderous turtles and twisted historical events and evil salt shakers, fine. But the woman sitting about ten feet away from him made his chest go tight and cold in a way he really did not enjoy.

Or he thought she was a woman. She looked like one, dark curly hair tied up above her head and an old fashioned purple dress, the way she sat, prim and proper and back straight, on the bench in the center of the room. But he assumed she must be a woman as much as the Doctor was; one for now, maybe for the first time, certainly not permanently. 

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” her voice slithered towards him, low and soft and silky as he stared at the book in his hands, eyes not moving, not actually reading. “She leaves her oldest friend with her oldest friend. She doesn’t usually travel with humans of your age, considering how quickly you decline. But I wonder what mischief we could get up to together… Graham, was it?”

He thought about it for perhaps a beat too long and let his gaze flicker towards her, forcing a disinterested neutrality into it. She was in what Ryan was calling the Doc’s ‘brig’, though it was much nicer than some below deck jail cell. Polished floors, glass walls — or was it glass? He couldn’t quite be sure, it glowed blue around the edges. A piano in the center, for some reason. “Reconstituted vault!” the Doctor had called cheerily, a little manic, when her friend had found her standing outside the see-through walls, barely supporting the barely conscious stranger.

‘Missy’, she’d called her. A sudden alert had flashed on the console, a certain planet at a certain time. And the Doctor had whirled for it with a focus she rarely developed, staring at the information in front of her. “Missy. She moved. I set an alert in case she moved, but I thought she-”

“Who?”

Graham, standing alone in the doorway while the Doctor appeared to think she was talking to herself, hadn’t gotten the clearest answer.

“Don’t think we’ll be getting up to nothing, love,” Graham said, proud of the way his voice did not shake. “The Doc’ll be back in a few and she’ll be the one to deal with you. I’m just keeping an eye out.”

“I won’t be sticking around for that long.” As she spoke she shifted backwards, leaning against the glass wall to kick her feet out in front of her. Back straight, posture perfect. Her eyes glinting at him, unblinking.

“Gonna have to tell her you said that,” he muttered, letting his eyes close for a second too long, grip on the book tightening yet again.

“Oh, she knows,” the woman said, teeth brilliant through her smile, eyes wide but a bit too dead. Her voice might have been shifting through different accents. He couldn’t quite tell. “I’ve been in here before, she knew then and knows now that I could be gone already if I wanted to be.”

She shifted forward suddenly, her arms still restrained in front of her but now she was leaning towards him, her eyes sparkling even more. “But I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about you.”

He almost jolted back. He’d opened up a conversation, he realized far too belatedly, and cleared his throat as he looked back down at his book. His own fault. Better not to get involved, even the Doctor would have said that, he’s sure. About her supposed long time friend.

His hands were cold. He didn’t answer.

Out of the corner of his eye, still staring eyes unmoving at the text on the page, he saw her face fall into a pout. She huffed out loud, slumping her shoulders over. “What, you don’t want to talk to me?”

He still didn’t answer.

“Oh, do talk to me, Graham, please. I’m so bored, there’s nothing to focus on in here.” He pretended not to notice as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her wilt dramatically, leaning her entire body against the glass nearest him.

She wasn’t going to stop, he thought. Not without some kind of deterrent.

“I’m serious, I’m here to watch over you till the Doctor gets back. Nothing more. I’m not trying to entertain you or keep you occupied. Just settle back. She’ll be here soon.”

Silence. He didn’t want to look at her. But it was almost worse, the what-could-be morphing in his brain, the shortish brunette woman twisting and turning into something evil in the lack of his gaze.

Was she short still? Was she even a woman? Or, out of sight, was she morphing into darkness, swirling and twisting, grabbing the Doctor along the way? In his nightmares she’d be some enormous creature by now, reaching out to-

“I can’t even hurt you if I wanted to. See?” She stood and pressed a hand against the blue-glowing glass, her face twisted in an exaggerated pout as he finally glanced back again.

He shook his head. “Didn’t you just say you could be long gone if you wanted to be?”

Her bottom lip stuck out even farther. With a loud sigh, she whirled, lifting her skirt with both hands barely fisted in the fabric, flouncing over to the bench in front of the piano and sitting again. “Fine, you’ve figured me out. I don’t want to be gone. Not yet, at least.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m fascinated. She copied me, turning into a girl. I want to know what she’s like.”

The thing is, in Graham’s opinion, the Doctor was outwardly nothing like the creature who sat before him.

But there was something so recognizable in the madness flashing in her eyes, her smile.

She didn’t tie it tight around her like her corset, like the Doctor tied her own madness around her chest. Missy wore her age like a cape, her madness shoved out and away rather than packed in, all jabs and sign song voices and swirling skirts, and Graham was terrified of her. Because imagine the Doctor, unrestrained, open, not holding herself back, no history of love or friendship, no promises made centuries ago to keep. 

The Doctor unhinged. That stood before him. It was terrifying.

“She’s not like you.”

Dark eyes widened just a bit, and then her mouth, polished and red, split into a grin. “Isn’t she?”

It had been almost involuntary to say that. Because, as he was realizing with one eye glaring at Missy, the Doctor was something, but she tried so hard to be something else.

A clanging sound above them. Graham almost jumped again and prayed to any god that would listen that the Doctor was on her way.

“She likes to pretend she isn’t. But,” Missy said, shifting her body again to lean dramatically. No barely restrained energy but the same desire to move. “Like I said, she’s a copycat.”

“She might have changed after you but she isn’t like you,” he bit back, almost more defensive than afraid, because the Doc tried so hard, he knew she did. She must.

Another clang, this one closer, and he thought he could hear her chattering away in the distance.

"You don't even know what I'm like."

The pouting tone was back, and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I think I can tell."

"No, you can't. You don't know anything. She just spent years teaching me to be good. She thought I was good enough to stand beside her."

Graham scoffed. “Yeah, you can say that all you want.”

Missy sat up straight again, grabbed the front of her dress again, looking at him with those unblinking dark eyes twisted into something almost like innocence. “But why wouldn’t she? You don’t even know me, Graham. Why else would she let me back on her ship?”

Uncertainty broke into his chest, a crack in the ice. Because the Doctor had not just let her back onto the ship. She’d dragged her.

Ryan and Yaz had still been asleep. Graham had felt the TARDIS take off and heard the Doctor struggling with something, and found himself dragged into the situation.

Missy had been barely conscious, bleeding, her head lolling from one shoulder to the other as they went. And her thoughts had spilled out of her as the human had touched to try and help.

A maniacal grin. A thousand years of torment and then a thousand more, faces flashing by to four heavy beats. Out of nowhere the name ‘Harold Saxon’ appeared in Graham’s mind, and he recoiled in terror without being able to pinpoint why, but not before one last phrase had slipped in-

_Short for Mistress. Couldn’t very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?_

“Why do you need to lock her up?” Graham had asked, though it took him several long seconds to get his voice back.

“Precaution,” the Doctor replied, twisting restraints around the woman's wrists and stepping back to observe. “Just in case.”

He’d tried to shake it off. He was seeing things, or hearing them or both. But-

“I see two options,” Missy said. “Option one is I am not as scary as you seem to think I am.”

Four more beats in Graham’s mind. How could such a simple rhythm be so terrifying?

“Option two,” she continued, over-exaggerating her words now, letting her lips and tongue pop and spread with each letter. “Well, option two would be that you might not know the Doctor as well as you think you do.”

The door opened and the Doctor rushed in, Yaz and Ryan behind her. She began planning something, already was, her words going a mile a minute. But Graham couldn’t hear her over the slamming of his heart in his chest.

He finally turned away as Missy’s innocent eyes began to wrinkle into a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know your thoughts! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


End file.
